Speakers at a conference for young Indonesian Muslims Friday, urged the audience to denounce birth control methods such as condoms and the government’s family planning program, claiming such measures were part of a conspiracy to weaken the country.
At Ragunan Sports Center in South Jakarta, speakers at the conference titled, “Young Muslims, save Indonesia with Sharia and the Caliphate” asked the young attendants to reject contraception based on the rationale that reducing the population would weaken the country and draw it further into the conspiracy plans of the West.
“The effort is further supported by prohibition against marrying, such as the age limit to marry and give birth, which is above 20 and below 30,” said Nadiya Rayhan, a student activist from the Islamic State University (UIN) during the conference.
She said one of the government’s family planning programs, Teenage Reproductive Health (KRR), had allowed teenagers to learn about sex and practice sex freely, which is denounced by Islam.
Furthermore, she said the program’s information about abortion has disseminated the idea that it was acceptable for young Indonesian Muslims not to have children, which she linked to an attempt to weaken the country.
“This is clearly an attempt at genocide that has been planned carefully by the West,” she said.
Cicin Yulianti, a student activist from the Bogor Institute of Agriculture, elaborated on the “genocide” conspiracy further, saying that more people in Islamic countries would increase the possibility of stronger human resources.
She also said the fact that the population of Western countries, 20 percent of the world’s population, which consumed 80 percent of the world’s agricultural resources, signaled a motive for the West to obstruct population growth in Islamic countries.
“Young Muslims must wake up to this conspiracy,” she said. “Young Muslims must not eat up the poison packaged by the West with jargons like ‘caring about your reproductive health could give you a prosperous life,’ which forces Muslims to reduce in number”.
The conference was held by Hizbut Tahrir, an Islamic organization based in Indonesia. There were no men in attendance and the Ragunan Sport Center was filled with women and young girls clad in headscarves.
Several women and girls interviewed by The Jakarta Post said the conference was useful, though most of them did not understand the concept of sex or abortion.
Intan, a 17-year-old girl from an Islamic high school in Cibubur, said she had heard about the conference from a Koranic group that she always attended and decided to attend to increase her knowledge of Islam.
“I think it’s useful as it helps me to gain more of an insight into what Islam allows and what Islam prohibits,” she said after the conference.
Dina Hariyani, a teacher from an Islamic school in Jagakarsa, South Jakarta, said she hoped speakers would be more clear about the concept of sex and how to prevent unwanted pregnancies.
“I hoped that my students could come out of this conference at least knowing what sex was about,” she said.
“But my students said they still did not understand.”
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